Truths suppressed by the Establishment and society generally, and analytical overviews of reality to deepen understanding. All contents copyrighted. Brief quotations with attribution and URL [jasonzenith.blogspot.com] permitted.
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Thursday, April 28, 2016

One of the hackneyed, dubious propaganda tropes of U.S. corporate media hacks, reliably trotted out during presidential election seasons, is "momentum," or "Big Mo." The idea is that a candidate who wins, or "wins" (does better than projected to do by polls) in this or that state caucus or primary, will do better and better because of "momentum," like a rock or a snowball rolling down a hill, picking up speed and size as it goes.

More often than not, "momentum" turns out to be ephemeral in the instances when "the" media ballyhoos it. Not that they ever admit that.

"Momentum" is applied to candidates the corporate propaganda system wishes to promote. (Meanwhile, candidates like Ralph Nader, who filled Madison Square Garden in New York City with people who paid for the privilege of attending, are blacked out by the media. In this election, Bernard Sanders was virtually ignored until recently, even though he was getting more votes than Donald Trump. Trump, of course, of omnipresent in the U.S. media.)

You'd think, given the U.S. media's Trump-obsession, and the fact that Trump obviously IS going from strength to strength, that this more than anything would be a "momentum" moment.

But no, not at all. Even though in the last 5 primaries, Trump got from 54% to 65% of the vote! (So much for the wishful line saying most Republicans didn't vote for Trump, therefore they're against him.)

The reason for this is that the U.S. elites are increasingly alarmed by the prospect of a Trump candidacy (or in the "worst" case, a Trump presidency). This is because Trump has proven disruptive of the established political order. Not because he's a revolutionary. Because he says things out loud that are supposed to be tacit, to avoid causing class and race conflicts to burst into flame, instead of kept smoldering under the surface, allowing deniability.

Trump also is "unreliable" on "foreign policy," as he does not faithfully hew to U.S. imperialist scripts. Here again, his statements incite conflict, with China, and with U.S. "allies" (satraps and clients and lackeys). Were he to act on his claimed intentions, it would upset a number of apple carts.

And he even praised Russian Bogeyman Putin!! Doesn't he know Putin's a Bad Guy?

Clearly Trump is unschooled in "foreign policy," and says "irresponsible" things. To keep the American people brainwashed in the ideological catechisms of the moment of U.S. imperialism, it is necessary to create the illusion that the propaganda describes reality. The illusion is potentially spoiled when someone highly visible says the wrong "message."

Friday, April 22, 2016

U.S. emperor Obama has weighed in yet again on the upcoming British referendum two months hence, on leaving or remaining in the European Union (EU). Butting into other people's business is an old habit with the imperialist U.S., so no surprise there.

In typical fashion, Obama spoke out of both sides of his mouth, saying it was up to Britons to decide, while telling them how they should vote if they knew what was good for them. He told them brusquely that they'd be at the back of the line if they wanted to make a trade treaty with the U.S. if they voted to exit the EU, the so-called "Brexit" (short for British exit). Pretty rude.

Obama said, in coded language, that Britain will have the most pull if it continues to be the U.S.' stooge within the EU. Speaking as a "friend," Obama hinted that Britain's usefulness to the U.S. would be significantly diminished if it were to drop out of the EU, where it can act as a agent of U.S. interests inside that would-be superstate.

British prime minister David "Big Toff" Cameron chimed in, saying people should listen to their "friends," a reference to the U.S. nation-state. Cameron was forced against his will, after years of stalling and broken promises, to finally allow some democracy in Britain and let the people vote on continuing to be absorbed into the EU.

British elites are themselves divided on the issue- hence the referendum. Cameron's own party, the Conservatives, is split. And the self-promoting, showboating mayor of London, Boris Johnson, like Cameron a Tory, has come out for Brexit. Miffed at Obama's interference British internal affairs, he penned an irate piece in response, carping that Obama removed a bust of the glorious British imperialist Winston Churchill from the Oval Office, or somewhere in the White House. Obama replied that he passed by another Churchill head every day. So there.

It seems to me that there will neither be catastrophe nor great advantage to Britain if it exits the EU. There will be additional hoops to jump through for Brits wishing to work in Europe. Britain will have increased sovereignty in terms of domestic law. It will be free to deny social benefits to foreign workers, as well as limit their numbers. Trade might become a bit more cumbersome. As Britain never jettisoned its own currency, the pound, for the euro, nothing changes monetarily. The need to exchange currencies for trade and travel that already existed will be the same. The idea that Britain somehow swings greater weight on the global stage within the EU is based on the fallacy that the EU is something more than a U.S. appendage in international affairs, or else a passive body that cannot agree among its constituent nations on any decisive action. In the Ukraine matter, the U.S. has put Europe in the position of making sacrifices to punish Russia. The U.S. made the policy ("and fuck the EU," in the immortal words of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in her infamous, unguarded phone call to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt) and the EU suffered the economic consequences by imposing trade sanctions on Russia as per U.S. diktat. (The ever-dutiful and obedient German chancellor Angela "The Iron Mouse" Merkel, the actual boss of the EU, carried out her Master Obama's instructions.)

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

The massive document theft from the Panamanian law firm Mossack
Fonseca doesn't name Putin. But it names an alleged friend of his, a
cellist. That fact has been enough for the U.S. media to take the
ball and run with it. Putin is Culprit Number One in the U.S. media's
coverage of the stolen documents.[1]

Meriting mostly mere mentions, or no mention at all, are two other
"world leaders" (country bosses) who actually have
hidden accounts themselves as revealed in the documents:
Petro Poroshenko, the president-by-violent-street-riots of Ukraine,
and Mauricio Macri of Argentina, who just ripped off his own country
for billions of dollars handed over to U.S. hedge fund extortionists.
Poroshenko is the U.S.-EU-approved successor to the ousted
Yanukovych, said to deserve being violently ousted because he was
"corrupt." (But the referendum by which the people in
Crimea voted by over 90% to reunite with Russia was dismissed by
Western imperialists as "illegitimate," "illegal,"
"invalid," even "fake"- by Joseph Nye, a career
U.S. imperialist apparatchik. What a luxury it is to write your own
rules and the rules for everyone else also!) The "King" of Saudi Arabia has also been discreetly unmentioned prominently (or at all) in the U.S. media.

British prime minister David Cameron also got a pass in U.S.
media. The most said about him was when he finally stopped
stonewalling on Day 6 of the furor and announced that all taxes had
been paid on the account in question, which he inherited from his
father and which was closed prior to Cameron attaining the
premiership. His family successfully avoided a lot of taxes that way.
That didn't stop the BBC (the UK government's propaganda network)
from putting on a reactionary propagandist from the rightwing British
rag the Telegraph to insist that Cameron did nothing wrong and
it would all blow over. (In fact it hasn't blown over, even though
the BBC has been doing its best to effect that outcome.)

For the first few days, the insignificant nation of Iceland also
was useful as a way to virtually ignore the U.S. collaborators
Poroshenko and Macri. The Icelandic president was forced out of
office as a result of trying to hide his money. You'd think Iceland
was a major nation from the play it got, again especially on the BBC.
(Bullshit Broadcasting Corporation. Or is it Bombastic Blather
Corruption? I forget.)

It probably escaped most people's attention, even though there
have been pro forma acknowlegments in passing in the deluge of
media shaming, is the fact that "hidden" and "secret"
doesn't equal illegal, and that it is unknown how many of those whose
financial privacy has been stripped away evaded taxes. In the public
mind, offshore has been equated with tax evasion. (As we know from
the example of Mitt Romney, and the U.S. corporations that have $2
trillion socked outside the U.S. to avoid paying taxes- legally.)

1] And not
just U.S. media. Here's who the leftish Guardian (UK) shines
the spotlight on in its central story on the Panama Papers:

Even the left-leaning Guardian (UK) put Putin front-and-center in its coverage of the Panama Papers. Note implication: It's all Putin's money. That's unlikely.

In 1945, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the undefended Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For nearly three-quarters of a century, U.S. government officials have avoided those war crime scenes like the plague. [1]

Now U.S. Secretary of State John "Skull and Bones" Kerry, a made member of the U.S. nomenklatura, has visited Hiroshima (but not Nagasaki- poor Nagasaki has always played second fiddle to Hiroshima, or been forgotten entirely, in the pantheon of Atomic Bomb Victim Cities). [2]

Kerry delivered remarks that were both anodyne and deeply cynical. (Or if you want to give Kerry "the benefit of the doubt" and assume that he truly believes the guff he bloviates, deeply hypocritical.) They are completely forgettable boilerplate, not worthy of quotation. You can look them up if you like, the U.S. State Department website archives such propaganda. (I suggest using the Tor browser and a VPN if you don't want to endanger yourself by visiting such a risky website. Who knows what kind of malign spyware will be planted on your device.)
Kerry spoke of the need to eliminate nuclear weapons. The need to eliminate nuclear weapons... .at the same time his boss has put in motion a 30, TRILLION dollar program to add NEW nuclear weapons to the U.S. arsenal! (Kerry, do you have any shame at all? I guess not. Nor do you have any respect for our intelligence, to insult us in such a blatant fashion.) [3]

It seems to me (as it would to any even semi-rational observer) that you and Obama and the U.S. are hardly serious about "eliminating nuclear weapons."

Kerry is right at home in the extremely mendacious Obama regime. Nixon and Clinton had nothing on Obama when it comes to slippery deception and con artistry. Every year for 6 years now, Obama has called a "summit" in the Empire's capital, Washington, D.C., to which he has summoned other "world leaders" (including from China and Europe) to lecture them on nuclear weapons disarmament. They listen politely and play the game. All want to con their publics about their good intentions and benign natures. All are sickening shysters.

What Obama is actually doing to building out an arsenal that includes all new weapons for all three "legs" of the U.S. nuclear "strategic triad," plus more. This "triad" consists of the U.S. Navy's nuclear strategic submarines, which carry SLBMs (Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles), each missile carrying multiple warheads that can each be dropped on a separate target; and the U.S. Air Force's bomber fleet carrying nuclear bombs and cruise missiles, and the land-based ICBMs (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles), which like the Navy's subs, each carrying multiple warheads.

Obama also thinks the U.S. needs something called the "long range standoff weapon," a new cruise missile with a nuclear "payload." This can be fired from hundreds of miles away, will fly low, under radar defenses, and thus is a first strike weapon. Obama wants to put new nuclear bombs in Europe, the "B-6H2" guided bomb.

There will be all kinds of new nukes, more precision ones, ones with "dial a yield" capacity, to pick the explosive force- as if this crap is necessary.

Having spend trillions on "defense" since 1945, the U.S. is committed ad infinitum to gigantic war budgets in perpetuity, for which it taxes its people, while depriving them of decent social services. Remember, this trillion is just for new nuclear weapons. There's a half trillion dollar white elephant of a new fighter jet, inferior in every respect to the planes it is replacing, the F-35, a pure boondoggle for the military-industrial complex. And much more. Not to mention "off-budget" wars that they don't count, but that someone has to pay for. (Guess who?)

It's just like the Cold War never ended!

Because you see, the "Cold War" was just a cover and an excuse for U.S. imperialism, something that began in 1789.

1] The deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime, period. And the motive for the attack is irrelevant. For decades, the U.S. propaganda line, drilled into the heads of every American, is that these war crimes caused Japan to surrender and saved 50,000, or 100,000, or 250,000, or 1,000,000 American lives. (Yes, the number kept going up over the years- all fictive.) But committing war crimes in order to try and win a war does not "legalize" the crime.

And even the claimed result, Japan's surrender, turns out to be false. Recent historiography proves conclusively that it was the Soviet Union's entry into the war against Japan that induced Japanese capitulation. The Japanese Emperor and military oligarchy was so deluded that they believed the Soviets could be used to broker a deal with the U.S. and UK for an end to the war on terms acceptable to Japan. Instead the Japanese rulers were completely stunned and shocked by the Soviet attack on Japanese forces in Manchuria in August. (The atomic bombings were also in August.) Before the atomic bomb attacks destroyed two cities, another 68 Japanese cities had already been largely destroyed by firebombs dropped by B-29s under the command of the psychopath General Curtis LeMay. (Who later in life, as head of the Strategic Air Command- the arm of the U.S. Air Force that controlled U.S. nuclear-armed bombers and the ICBMs, Inter-Continenal Ballistic Missiles with nuclear warheads- was straining at the leash to nuke the Soviet union, and nuke Vietnam.) The fact that two more cities were incinerated logically wouldn't have changed the attitude of the Japanese military dictators. In fact, even after the Soviet entry into the war and the atomic bombings, one member of the Emperor's war cabinet still wanted to fight on!

It's true that Japan committed many war crimes, many atrocities against civilians. But the fact that one's adversary commits war crimes does not "legalize" one's own crimes. To use a criminal law analogy, if someone murdered a member of your family, and you retaliated by murdering a member of theirs, you would still be liable to a charge of murder. Or in common sense terms, "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right."

2]Skull and Bones is a secret society at Yale University, one of the "elite" so-called Ivy League universities, whose membership is limited to students whose families are members of the U.S. upper class. Membership is retained for life. Skull and Bones thus comprises a network within the permanent power structure of the U.S., new members of which are inducted in college. Kerry is a member, as is George Bush and his father, and his grandfather. It dates to 1832, meets in a concrete mausoleum-style building called the "Tomb," and has bizarre rituals.

Prescott Bush, grandfather of George Bush (father of George H.W. Bush), was one of four "Bonesmen," who robbed the grave of native American warrior Geronimo in 1918, spiriting away the skull and some bones to the Skull and Bones lair. Later, when Geronimo's descendants sued to get the bones returned, the FBI tried to quash the case. Jonathan Bush, H.W.'s brother, was involved in parrying the descendants in sham "negotiations." Bottom line- the "Bonesmen" retain their war trophies. See here for details.
Some, however, believe the Bonesmen just pretended to have Geronimo's bones, for example Cecil Adams. Either way, the whole thing is a minor aspect of the Skull and Bones story, the importance of which is that this secret society is a vehicle for perpetuating ruling class power by internal cohesion and forming bonds of personal and group loyalty to a power elite.